It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

Reason teaches us that what is good is good for something, and that what is good for nothing is not good at all.

The propriety of some persons seems to consist in having improper thoughts about their neighbors.

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.